It is my view that it is better to wash the car with whatever you’ve got handy than to forever drive around in a filthy car. Dead bugs, bird droppings, sap, and road grime can all do damage to your paint – especially if left there for months at a time. While dish soap is great at degreasing, that may not be what you want. For example, any wax that might be on your car will be stripped by many dish soaps.

But, real car wash soap is milder than your dish soap, and is designed with a different purpose in mind. Good car wash soap will include waxes and lubricants that will both protect the vehicle after the wash, and help to make the process less time consuming while yielding better results.

Winter is going to be over in a month, which means that we’re going to start having nice days in Portland and throughout The Gorge. Before we get too worried about dents and dings, there are other things to attend to.

What do you do now that most of the snow from the last storm has melted, and your car looks like it’s been rolling around in the mud and sand? Some of you are going to risk being blamed for the next week of rainfall and wash the car!!!

If you are the type of person that has people to handle such things – I applaud you. If not, and you’re going it alone, read on…

Having somebody else wash the car for you…

Here’s the tip – if the car has sand, rock and grit clinging to it, you must give it a good rinse before you touch it with a wash rag and soap.

I’m lazy, so I take it to the local pressure wash style car wash place, and blow the grit and grime off with a pressure wash wand, before I take it home for a bath. This does an excellent job of reducing the amount of scratching that a hand wash can cause.